Note: This is the last blog post until September. Because Rev. Manion will be preparing material for the upcoming fall series, she will not be blogging during the month of August.
Scripture for Sunday, July 26, 2017: Psalm 146
Additional Scripture: Colossians 1:15-20, Romans 8:18-25
"...that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures,great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God." (Belgic Confession, Article 2)
In The Magician's Nephew, Digory and Polly try to get the evil witch, Queen Jadis, out of their world and back into her own. In the process, they fall into a dark, empty world that the Witch identifies as "Nothing."
So there they sit in the blackness--the witch and the two children, along with Digory's Uncle Andrew, a magician; and a cabbie and his horse, Strawberry.
"My doom has come upon me," the Witch says. Uncle Andrew searches for alcohol to soothe his nerves. The cabbie has the good sense to encourage everyone to join voices for a hymn.
So Polly and Diggory join the cabbie in a hymn of thanksgiving. And soon they're not the only ones singing.
"In the darkness something was happening at last. A new voice had begun to sing....Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them....It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it...."
"Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the Voice was suddenly joined by other voices, more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it.... The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars....One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out: single stars, constellations, and planets..... If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves who were singing, and that it was the first Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing." (Lewis, 84-88).
As Aslan comes closer he continues to sing. He sings trees and flowers into the landscape. And Polly realizes that "when you listened to his song, you heard the things he was making up; when you looked round you, you saw them." (95).
As we open Psalm 146 together this weekend, we will "listen to [God's] song." This psalm is a song of praise to the God who creates--and keeps on creating--the glorious world we inhabit; and who will re-create his world and his people at the end of time.
Joining our hearts in the music of the Psalter attunes our ears to his voice in his Word, so that when we "look round us," we see his glory in the world he has made.
1. As you read the first 5 verses of the Psalm 146, use your sanctified imagination to wonder about the disappointments or pain that may have illustrated the limitations of human power for the psalmist. Then notice the contrasting description of the LORD's ability and activity in verses 6-9.
2. In your own background, how have you understood the relationship of Christian faith and scientific knowledge? (As complementary? Christian faith above science; or science above faith? On opposite poles?)
3. Verse 6 of the Psalm in Hebrew identifies that God is continuing in his creative work in our world. What does it mean to you that we serve a God who did create our world and continues to work in it? What responsibility might that ongoing creative work of God give us as stewards of his creation?
